NAME patchaperlup - apply a couple of patches in a perl source directory SYNOPSIS patchaperlup --perldir perldir --diffdir diffdir [ --start patch-number ] [ --upto patch-number ] [ --quiet ] [ --version ] DESCRIPTION This utility runs a batch of jobs that upgrade an arbitrary source snapshot of perl with selected numbered patches to produce another snapshot of perl. It is designed to be called from other utilities (such as apc-buildaperl) that implement a source repository in the broader sense. How to get at perl patches is described in the perlhack manpage. When you have unpacked a perl source tarball or otherwise produced a source snapshot, patchaperlup should be run as perl patchaperlup --perldir perl5.5.660 --diffdir diffs "patchaperlup" checks which highest numbered patch has already been applied to the perl in the "perldir". The --upto argument defaults to the highest numbered patch in the directory given by the --diffdir argument. The --start argument defaults to the last patch referenced in the Changes file in the untarred perl sources plus one. So the above command is equivalent to something like perl patchaperlup --perldir perl5.5.660 --diffdir diffs \ --start 5199 --upto 12345 depending on the contents of your diffdir. (perl5.5.660 had finished with patch 5198.) The batch job is pretty verbose and explains what it is doing. The reason for the verbosity is that it can take a while until "patchaperlup" is finishing. Verbosity can be turned off with the --quiet switch and increased with the --verbose switch. "patchaperlup" prints a few mail-header-like lines to STDOUT, namely Version: version of patchaperlup Perldir: perl directory Diffdir: directory containing the patches Firstpatch: number of the first applied patch Lastpatch: number of the last applied patch everything else is printed to STDERR. The --version switch prints the version and exits. PREREQUISITES The programs "zcat" and "patch" must be in your path. Likewise "perl" and the utility "patchls" (which can be found in recent perl distributions) must be available in the path. "patchls" must not be too old (the one with 5.8.0 is OK). AUTHOR Andreas Koenig